The Founding Fathers and Slavery

William W. Freehling presents his view of the Founding Fathers and slavery in the article 'The Founding Fathers and Slavery.' He contends that America's Founding Fathers were antislavery but gives viewpoints of other historians to the contrary. The first sentence of the article states, 'Only a few years ago... no man needed to defend the Founding Fathers on slavery.' This implies that there was a change in the interpretation of the Founding Fathers position on slavery and indeed there was. Freehling lists the men who hold this more recent opinion, he says, 'Scholars such as Robert McC…